


Ivory and Divine

by honda_cvic



Category: Iconoclasts (Video Game)
Genre: Assassination attempts, Gen, cursing, little baby royal, mother being not great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honda_cvic/pseuds/honda_cvic
Summary: A story about the first time Royal heals himself.





	Ivory and Divine

The gunshot that rings out across City One’s common is _loud_.

This is, typically, how gunshots are, though no one can really blame Royal for not knowing that. He’s young, younger than any other Transcended anyone’s seen before (the Agents always seem older, rougher, less perfect. When the next successor to Mother came out of the Transcender eight years ago, he had been youthful and flawless, has aged normally and beautiful since then, would stop aging in another eight years or so,) and besides he stays in the Bastion every day but holidays with Mother, like today. So then who can blame him for not knowing how loud a gunshot would be? It’s to be expected that the poor boy would jump at the sound. Most people would. Most people do.

It doesn’t help that little Royal is the one who’s been shot at.

Who’s been shot.

The force knocks him back, away from his spot next to Mother, hits him square in the stomach and he falls down and back with a surprised yelp. The common erupts into chaos immediately, cries of alarm and confusion masking the birdsong typical of City One. The source of the shot isn’t clear, at first, so people are ducking and scrambling out of the way, except they don’t know which way is _the_ way so it’s really more like they’re scrambling in any which way at all. Bastion soldiers, once nearly invisible on the side lines of Mother’s procession, are springing into action, pushing people back and away from the parade with force bordering on violent. Someone’s barking orders, “ _Get Mother out of here,” “Secure the perimeter,” “Put the city on lock-down,”_ Mother’s Corners have shielded the Medium, she’s being whisked away, everything has erupted including—

—Royal’s stomach, _Royal’s stomach_ —

He thinks there’s too many people around him, suddenly, too many people touching him and yelling things he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand. There’s something very hot inside him, burning outward from a fixed point in the very pit of his stomach. _This doesn’t feel right,_ he catches himself thinking. Then someone’s touching him again and there is suddenly _(wait, no, don’t lift me up don’t lift me up don’t lift me up_ — _) P A I N_ and he remembers screaming, mostly from the pain but also from the surprise that anything could possibly hurt that much, remembers then choking on something metallic and terrible in his mouth, his hands being restrained, and he twists and writhes and every movement is agony and—

_“Get him inside the Bastion!”_

_“You fucking morons, put him on the ground!”_

_“Does he know how to do it yet?”_

_“Just drop him!_

And he’s dropped, unceremoniously, onto the cold tile floor of the Bastion’s front entry room. He gasps when he hits it, feels something stir within him, around the bullet, through his veins. There’s something stirring and buzzing but everything _hurts_ and his vision is blurring around the edges. Something is starting to pull at him, something that reminds him of a state right before falling asleep. He wonders if he falls asleep right now, would the burning stop? Would the touching and the yelling stop? He could fall asleep, he could do it, he could—

_“Nothing’s happening—”_

_“—never seen so much of that white shit—”_

_“We need to call a doctor—”_

_“People like him don’t_ need _doctors.”_

“ **Move**.”

Through the buzzing and the burning and the terrible hurt, Royal cracks his eyes open at the new voice, and feels relief roll over him like a wave pulling him under. Mother. Mother would help him. Mother always makes everything better. Mother would know exactly what to do.

The Bastion soldiers shuffle backwards, leaving room for the Medium to kneel. Royal doesn’t notice the way she distinctly avoids the forming puddle of ivory blood, how she wrinkles her nose slightly at the sight of it all. He just feels her there, feels the pure ivory pulsating through her, comforting and terrifying in a way that he’s grown accustomed to the past eight years, (he doesn’t see her often, but when he does, it’s always accompanied by that sickening mix of comfort and terror that Royal knows must be the feeling of overwhelming love she has for all of her children.) She leans in close and Royal feels her lips brush his ear. “Royal, _listen to me._ ”

His uneven breath hitches, and he holds back a cough to stop himself from spewing blood into Mother’s face. He’s listening, he’s listening, but it’s getting so hard to, Mother, it hurts so bad and he just wants to sleep and,

“You want to be the next medium to Him? You want to show the world you’re the holy progeny deserving of their worship and _respect_?” The whole thing is whispered, spat, seethed into Royal’s ear and a shiver runs through his body despite himself and he’s choking and he’s _dying_ and _please, Mother, please,_ “Then you need to heal yourself _right now._ Use the ivory in the floor and _do it,_ or prove to the world that they are right and that you are _nothing.”_

Royal does not want to be nothing. He _is not_ nothing; he is Royal and he is the future medium to He, holy offspring of Mother, powerful and divine and important and _definitely not nothing_ , and his stomach hurts and his whole body hurts and all he wants to do is cry and sleep and never get up again but **_he is not nothing_** _._

Royal feels it, then, the buzzing throughout his body intensify, until his ears are ringing and his throat is raw (is he screaming? He hopes he’s not, that would be so bothersome to Mother,) and there’s a series of loud _POP POP POP POPs_ and bright flashes behind his eyelids and then everything is warm, or is it cold? He can’t tell but—

But then it’s over. But then nothing hurts and a small, metal bullet previously embedded in the boy’s stomach clangs when it hits the floor. There’s no blood in his mouth. There’s no blood. The exhaustion hits him immediately, and he gasps, winded, feeling like he’s just been kicked or punched, but the burning is gone. The pain is gone, along with the wound and the remnants of a metal bullet fired by a man who Royal had never met before.

Mother stands up. Her arms are spread as she turns to face the small crowd of Bastion soldiers, advisors, and the Corners who have all shut themselves in the front room of the Bastion. Warmth has returned to her voice and her being. “My children, Royal has been saved by his holy powers that the Great Starworm has blessed him with. There is no cause for worry, for your future Medium is saved today by the great and mighty He!”

There’s some cheering and commotion, and Royal is helped up, steadied by tight grips on both of his arms. His muscles are twitching and he feels them shiver and rebel against the fingers wrapped around his upper arms as he’s led away and further into the Bastion towards his quarters. He feels bile rise in his throat, swallows it before he can think about his shuddering arm muscles and the way the bullet sounded when it fell from his healed body and onto the floor. In one last attempt to gain back some semblance of control over the situation, he looks back at Mother, still amongst the small crowd, still standing with her arms spread.

But her back is to Royal and she doesn’t turn.

(The day Royal heals himself for the first time is also the day he performs his first Penance, after the man with the gun has been caught and the holy recitals have been performed by the Progenarian. Mother smiles at Royal after he’s sent the man Down into the earth. He thinks of her smile later in bed while trying to convince himself of his own invincibility and wondering why he can’t stop crying.)


End file.
